


laundromat makoharu for the soul

by jocchi



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2588777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jocchi/pseuds/jocchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i spent several hours writing this ive never finished free i love you</p>
            </blockquote>





	laundromat makoharu for the soul

Anybody with a decent mind knew that doing laundry sucked. Anybody with a decent mind knew that being a teen sitting in a laundromat alone on a Sunday night sucked. Haruka Nanase wasn’t alone in the sense that there wasn’t anybody there, he was just alone in the sense that nobody he knew was there. He and the other (presumed) teenager had been there the whole night. Luckily, Haruka just had his own clothes to do, since he didn’t have any siblings and his parents weren’t home often enough to even have laundry for him to do. The other guy, the really friggin’ tall one, on the other hand, seemed to have more than enough on his plate. Maybe he had a full house or something, Haruka figured.

Haruka was half tempted to go up and help this poor kid transfer the neverending piles of clothes from the washers to the driers for him, but he’d probably call the police or something. Going up to someone (a stranger, nonetheless), and offering help with their belongings was kind of the worst idea Haruka had had that day, aside from doing laundry at 7 on a Sunday night.

A good half an hour later, Haruka found himself sitting in front of the drier, watching the clothes toss around each other, get tangled, untangle, and repeat the process. It was pretty calming. Calming until he heard the unfamiliar patron open the drier, practically cry out, “Shit,” and apologize to absolute thin air. Weirdo. Haruka stood, pretending to check something on the drier above him, as he watched that one person do whatever he was to do next.

In this case, it was to scramble for his phone, wait, and essentially whine, “Mom, I might be home later than expected. The washer’s being funny. Ren and Ran’s clothes are still soaking! Yes, ma— mother, I know that it’s what the drier is for, but they’re dripping and everything! I’ll have to run them through again. I might not be home to tell the kids goodnight! Could you or dad do that for me? Thank you, Mom. Tell them I love them.” He paused to look around. “Love you too.” Then he hung up and gave Haruka a sheepish smile. Whatever.

Guess it was time to approach this dork and maybe help him so he could get home to this “Ren and Ran” before their bedtime.

Haruka slid up to the other with the suaveness of a leather couch and asked what the problem was, just to clarify that he had absolutely not been listening on his conversation because what kind of creep does that anyway.

“It’s nothing! Don’t worry, sir. The washer is just acting wacky. You see, my siblings’ clothes are still wet.” He held up a shirt to prove his point. It looked like it peed itself. Haruka pointed this out, causing the other to laugh. Giggle, almost. It was mentally noted as adorable, and that was that. Nothing to dwell on there.

“As much as I hate to bother you with problems that aren’t your problem, what should I do? Do I put it in the wash again, or just put them in the drier and hope for the best?” God, he was cute, but he wasn’t exactly a genius. Neither was Haruka. Excellent.

“Just switch washers and run it through. Maybe it won’t happen. I don’t know.” He added that last part so he wouldn’t be held accountable for anything that went wrong. The other did as he was instructed without a second of hesitation. Who was he that he could trust a stranger so easily? For all he knew, that could be a recipe to blow up the whole place. He could die that night because he was so willing to trust.

Well, now that the situational analysis was done, Haruka could just leave, right? He turned around to do that, but was stopped by a hesitant, “Wait.” So that’s what he did.

“Do you have a cell phone?” Yep, he most definitely did. “Can you text?” What a stupid question, he thought, but yes, he most definitely could. Why was it any of this kid’s business? “Would you like to… exchange numbers, by any chance?” Oh. “If it’s an inconvenience or weird or anything like that, don’t feel like you have to! It’s your choice.”

Without saying a word, Haruka went to where the stranger could add his number in by himself, and gave the phone to him, silently hoping he wouldn’t run off with it. As a nonverbal way of saying he wouldn’t take it, he gave Haruka his phone in return. Wait, he was supposed to put his number in this, wasn’t he?

They did their exchange and gave their respective phones back, checking the other’s name. The stranger, apparently named Makoto, smiled upon reading Haruka’s name on the screen.

“What’s so funny?” Makoto practically turned to stone upon hearing that.

“Nothing, Haruka, if you don’t mind me using your name. It’s just that you probably have the same problem I do. The -chan problem. Since we both kind of have girly names. Oh, gosh, that sounds rude. I’m sorry! Forget I said that. On a more important, and less offensive, note, can I call you Haru? Not that there’s anything wrong with Haruka. It just slides off the tongue easier, is all.” He looked so antsy, even though it was nothing.

Haru gave him a blank look because he got some sick joy out of watching Makoto squirm. He let it last for a few seconds before calmly saying, “Yeah, the -chan thing is a problem, since, well, I’m a boy.” He had to make it obvious. Really obvious. Obvious in a “hey, you’re a guy and I’m a guy but I don’t really care since you’re kind of attractive,” sort of way. “Call me Haru if you want. Call me whatever you want. And whenever, since we exchanged numbers for a reason.”

“I like texting more, but I can call if you really want. Texting would just be easier since, well, you know how younger siblings are.” Haru nodded even though he himself didn’t have the same sibling joys as Makoto, being an only child and all.

“Come sit by me on the bench. We can talk there while your siblings’ laundry finishes up. I’ll be here for a while, too.”

 

It was now nearly nine. Their laundry was finally done, and they could go home. Not like he really wanted to.

“So I guess this is goodbye?” said Makoto wistfully. “Unless you’re not busy tonight.” He flushed. “Don’t take that the wrong way, Haru! I’m just asking because, well, I’m not exactly tired, and I don’t have anything to do, so… do you want to spend the night? Everybody’s already asleep. Nobody would mind. My family will welcome you, trust me. You can have my bed for the night and everything. I’ll take the couch, don’t worry.”

He felt stupid and too easily trusting for agreeing to it, but he did it, and he wasn’t backing down. Spending the night at Makoto’s house seemed like a good idea. He hoped he wouldn’t get murdered or anything.

He pondered on what a stupid idea this was the entire train ride back. He was so out of it that hearing Makoto announce, “Haru, this is our stop,” nearly gave him a heart attack. He stood at the platform in silence for a moment.

“How do you know where I live?” Haru could literally see his house from there. It was at the bottom of the huge staircase that was on the sort of not really huge hill.

“What are you talking about? This is the way to my house. It’s at the top of that hill.” Makoto pointed to the top of the sort of not really huge hill with the huge staircase that Haruka lived at the bottom of. “Are you tired? You really need to get to sleep.”

“How long have you been living there?” What an odd question. Haru felt like an idiot for asking, but he had to know.

“My whole life… why?”

“And what school do you go to? Are you one of those home-schooled hippy people?”

Makoto weakly chuckled at the joke before answering, “Iwatobi High… can I ask why, please?”

Haru instinctively grabbed at the front of Makoto’s jacket as if he were about to either mug or make out with him. “You go to my school. And live right at the top of the hill that I live at the bottom of. How have I not seen you around?”

“I-I don’t really know. Please let go of me.” Ah, right, that. Haruka did as instructed.

“Come sleep over my house if this is the case, though. It’s good to spend time out of the house. Drop your stuff off and come over.”

“Are you sure? Come to think of it, it’s Sunday night. We should really sleep at our own houses. We can talk at school tomorrow, Haru.”

Haru glared at Makoto, causing him to flinch, since his eyes were (as he’d been told before), “soulless and a little intimidating”. It was good for cases like this.

“Alright, I’ll sleep over, if your family is okay with it. And only if! I don’t want to make anybody uncomfortable. I’m going to drop my clothes off at my house. Text me with any changes, okay?” And with that, he was off.

Haruka went to his house, changed into his pyjamas, and brushed his teeth as quickly as he could. He’d worry about the laundry tomorrow. He heard a knock at the door and practically ran to it, then tore it open like he was a little kid waiting for a mailman Santa. Nope, it was just Makoto. He slid into the door like he was hiding. Once he got into the door, Haru realized that he was in fact hiding, since he too was in his pyjamas and probably didn’t want the neighbors to see him like that.

“I told my parents I was coming over, and where you lived and whatnot, so I hope that’s okay. I take it that it’s okay with your parents that I’m here?” Just a nod as a response. It wasn’t not-okay with them, so that was close enough, right?

“Do you mind if I sleep on the couch? I don’t really want to invade your privacy by sleeping in your be—”

“Yes, I do mind. Sleep with me.” Cue disgusting blush that Makoto hopefully didn’t notice. “In my bed. Sleeping. With me. It’s… people don’t do it often.” Haruka couldn’t bring himself to admit that his bed was lonely when it was void of anybody but him. The whole house was lonely, since he practically lived by himself. This Makoto should live with him, Haru realized. He seemed decent enough, and not a serial killer as of yet. Maybe he was just growing desperate at this point. Oh well. He’d dwell on that later.

Makoto smiled as if he understood. Not like he ever would, but whatever. His smile was dazzling so, again, negativity was to be left for later. “Okay. I… guess I can do that. But, uh, nothing weird, okay?”

“Define ‘weird’. Like, ‘no blowjobs’ ‘weird’?” Not like Haru would do anything like that anyway. Makoto was kind of handsome. He probably got a lot of girls and thus might be crawling in STDs or something.

“…Yeah, I guess.”

“I can promise I won’t do that.”

“Okay.”

After a good moment of silence, Haru wordlessly lead Makoto to his room, bearing a simple bookshelf, a desk for doing homework, and a twin bed, which Makoto was staring at like it was a murder scene just left laying out.

“Haru? How are we both going to fit on that? I can really just sleep on the couch if this is the case,” Makoto said, seeming vaguely horrified by the idea of sleeping in a, gasp, twin bed with Haruka Nanase. He didn’t have any contagious diseases.

“We can squeeze. It’s called spooning. We can spoon and leave out the dirty parts of it.” That didn’t change Makoto’s bewildered look at all.

“Alriiiight, then,” he said, almost cautiously.

“Just trust me.”

“I am trusting you.”

“You don’t sound like you are.”

“I am. I promise.” That was good enough validation for the night.

Haruka turned off the light ushered Makoto to his bed, for he’d be the big spoon. It couldn’t and wouldn’t go the other way around. Once that was done, Haru nestled into the only vacant space. He fit almost perfectly in the little nest that was Makoto.

“You’re supposed to hug me and stuff, too. Pretty sure.” Makoto’s blush couldn’t be seen, but god, it could be felt. Somebody off in Egypt could probably feel it. It could melt the snow of Antarctica, it was so strong and so warm.

“Haru!,” Makoto protested. “I just met you. That’s weird.” Haruka

narrowed his eyes in response.

“Just do it.” And so he did. Incredible. This Makoto was rather moldable and easily manipulated into doing simple things. He was also pretty warm. This made Haru fall asleep pretty quickly.

Honestly, Haru was pretty warm himself. He wasn’t as soft as he looked, though. This… interaction made Makoto realize that he was pretty well build. The thighs that were pressing against his own were tough, and was that a six pack he felt under his hands? Yup, he concluded. It most definitely was. Wait, why was he feeling a stranger’s six pack? That was even weirder than… what was this, “spooning”? Whatever this was, it wasn’t as weird as feeling him up. What was he to do? Oh yeah, sleep it off, just as he did with every internal conflict that his mind came across. Yep, definitely time for bed.

Makoto mentally bid Haru goodnight before shutting his eyes and dozing off soon after.


End file.
